Quick Question: Can you see my sidebar?  When I changed my header picture last night, it disappeared from my screen.  I can see it to edit, but it won't pull up for me. Is it gone for everyone, or is it just my computer?

Later: OK -- I dinked around with the settings and removed my playlist from the other day, and I can see it again.  Can everyone else?

Makes My Monday

This sign on a mountain trail

Makes My Monday

While on a hike before he left for school, Dominic and I had just been talking about girls  (and his own personal Becky Thatcher) when we saw this; we both busted out laughing at the appropriate timing.  We, of course, had to have a picture, and before he  left, Dominic was photoshopping it to make a sign for school, changing Mtn Bikers to Students and  the bike and horse to girls and boys... Don't know if he finished it or not.  I'm going to have to ask him the next time I talk to him. I'm wondering if the faculty have the same sense of humor as we do...

.

.I gotta say, it also makes my Monday that Dominic, our fifteen year old, will laugh and share with me like he does.  I miss his face this morning!

Lots more Makes My Monday posts over at Cheryl's!

Coffee: It's Not Just About the Caffeine

Part I:                             
When I was a little girl, we lived just close enough to both sets of our grandparents to visit each of them a couple times a year. My grandmothers were as opposite as two women could be and their homes were just as opposite, so visiting each of them was a unique treat.

My mother's parents lived about five hours away from us, in a little white house in the woods of North Carolina, a family home for almost a century. They had a big screened-in porch in our younger days with a row of grey-painted rocking chairs and a glider, and the yard was full of trees dripping Spanish moss. We spent a lot of time rocking on the long porch swatting flies, and many a hot summer afternoon playing Star Trek in the crepe myrtle trees. The kitchen was paneled in pine, seasoned to a warm toast-brown patina; white ruffled curtains hung at the window. My grandmother always had a Currier and Ives calendar hanging on the wall and a silver percolater plugged in on the counter. The big old white stove in the corner had cooked so many egg and bacon breakfasts we fancied it might be able to do it all by itself. Except for we couldn't imagine that stove without our grandmother leaning over it.

My mother's mother was a tiny, pretty woman with beautiful brown eyes and snowy white hair, such a contrast to my grandfather who was a giant of a man, balding and blue eyed. Her name was Mamie, his was John, and their tender devotion to one another was a thing of beauty we recognized even as kids. Every morning, before anyone else was stirring in the house, we would hear my grandmother's slipper-scuffs tread softly across the living room. There would be a pause and the quiet noise of her working in the kitchen, then the sound of her padding back to bed. We would hear the low murmer of our grandparents' voices, and then the sound of the percolator swooshing and "kagunking" in the kitchen. Several of us, hearing our grandparents were up, would go join them in their big four-post bed and add to their gentle discussion, while the smell of the coffee wafted in from the kitchen.

Mommom (we called her "Mommom") would get up after a bit and bring back a cup of coffee for Poppop (that's what we called him), and we would talk and giggle until the dim light of early morning brightened the room. Mommom would get up after a bit and shoo us out so she could dress, then she'd go out to start the breakfast: bacon and eggs, her biscuits, and another pot of coffee before the morning was through. The grown-ups would be stirring their second cups and talking around the kitchen table as we headed out to play in the trees, the smell of bacon and coffee lingering on our clothes.

Life was good.

And it's been good visiting with you this morning in my country grandmother's kitchen.

Next Saturday morning: My Baltimore city Grandmother

Quick Takes: Summer

 Can you believe it's almost September? Summer is waning, fall fast approaching, and I still haven't made my garden markers! But summer vacation flew by so fast! Absurdly fast. I didn't have the time! I was only just putting putting away our sweaters and coats, and and now I have to think about getting them out again already.

The whole summer's been a blur, but the last two or three weeks have been especially hectic, as we've scrambled to get all the children where they've needed to be for the school year, with all the things they'll need while they're there. It seems like we've had an amazing number of side-trips and activities through August, too, on top of trying to get geared back up for our own year of homeschooling. It's been a circus! But, things are finally settling down a bit now that the big boys are back in Omaha and it's just us girls and the little boys home again. At least the trapeze artists have come down out of the high wires. Still got the clowns going on, though, of course, and a little lion taming now and then...

But I finally have a little bit of time to look back at the summer. And, looking back, I can say it was a good one.

Busy, but good.

Chilly and rainy, but good.

Short, but good.

I thought I'd take the chance to use today's Friday Quick Takes to scrapbook our summer - and what I liked best about it. (Click on the button to access lots more Quick Takes!)

1. Summer Cooking

Palisade Peaches

Peach Cobbler

8-9 peaches, peeled & sliced

1/2 c. water

3/4 c. honey

2 tbsp. flour

Pinch salt

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/8 tsp nutmeg

2-4 Tbs. butter

Prepping the Peaches

Cook peaches in water until tender. Mix flour, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. Add to peaches. Mix. Pour in bottom of 9x13 pan, drizzle and lightly mix in honey; dot with butter.

Pastry for the Cobbler

1 c. flour

1/2 tsp. salt

1/3 c. shortening

1/2 c. sweet milk -- for a loose dough.

Blend flour, salt and shortening to coarse meal texture. Add milk. Pour (it's "globby") over peaches. Bake at 350 degrees for 45-50 minutes or until top is brown.

Sweet Cherries:

(The pic below looks gruesome, doesn't it? Looks like I'm carving on someone's spleen or something...)

Cherry Conserve

Ingredients for four pints:
1 quart pitted sweet cherries

2 oranges peeled

1/4 cup lemon juice

3 1/2 cups sugar

water

Directions: Finely chop oranges (with Cuisinart or by hand). Places oranges and juice in a sauce pan, cover with water and cook until oranges are soft. Cool. Stir in cherries, lemon juice and sugar. Bring to a boil and cook until thick and clear or until juice sheets from a spoon. Pour into clean hot sterilized jars or jelly glasses. Finish off in boiling water bath, ten minutes.

Zucchini:

Our Favorite Zucchini Bread
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
3 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
2 1/4 cups white sugar
3 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups grated zucchini
1 cup chopped walnuts (if desired)

Directions:
1.Grease and flour two 8 x 4 inch pans. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

2.Sift flour, salt, baking powder, soda, and cinnamon together in a bowl.
3.Beat eggs, oil, vanilla, and sugar together in a large bowl. Add sifted ingredients to the creamed mixture, and beat well. Stir in zucchini and nuts until well combined. Pour batter into prepared pans.
4.Bake for 40 to 60 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in the center comes clean

2. The Park

Our favorite one -- in Georgetown, CO

3. The Garden

(You can see who my little garden and kitchen helper is, can't you?
Not that the girls aren't a great help, but Gabey is particulary gung-ho! )

4. The Flowers

5. The Hikes

6. The Fun

(Why everyone's shirts are all stretched out around here...)

7. The Faces